Resource World Magazine

normal technology. The PETE process could really give the feasibility of solar power a big boost," Melosh said. "Even if we don't achieve perfect efficiency, let's say we give a 10% boost to the efficiency of solar conversion, going from 20% efficiency to 30%, that is still a 50% increase overall." RELEASING ENERGY FROM COAL WITHOUT BURNING IT "There are many exciting possibilities for the clean coal technology," says Liang-Shih Fan, a chemical engineer and director of Ohio State University's Clean Coal Research Laboratory. "We found a way to release the heat from coal without burning it. This could be applicable for many industries." Researchers use iron-oxide pellets as an oxygen source, and contain the reaction in a small chamber from which pollutants cannot escape. The only waste product would be water and solid coal ash – no greenhouse gases. As an added benefit, the metal from the iron-oxide is recyclable. The energy creation process is commonly known as "oxidation," and is the chemical combination of a substance with oxygen. Fan and his colleagues envision this process as a replacement for old-fashioned coal power plants. Auto industry experts and other researchers are excited about the prospects of using clean-coal technology to power fleets of cars, and as a possible rival to battery-powered hybrids and electric vehicles already in use. If the technology can be successfully miniaturized enough to fit into cars, the fueling infrastructure needed M AY 2 0 1 3 to service them would not be all that difficult to develop. "In using clean coal pellets, a customer could pull up to a filling station, where the clean coal pellets would be introduced into the on-car storage tank. This clean coal would then be used to generate electricity through an on-board generator, which would charge up the ultracapacitors," suggests Chad Hall, founder and vice president of Ioxus®, in Oneonta, N.Y., a maker of ultracapacitors for the auto industry. "While the generator supplies a steady output of energy for maintaining even speeds, the capacitor would be used for acceleration, or as an assist during hill-climbing," said Hall. Fan's technology could reduce power plant emissions from plants used to generate electricity for electric vehicles, lowering the environmental footprint of electric cars. MAKING CONCRETE FROM BIOFUEL WASTE PRODUCTS A new form of concrete, which is stronger and has a lower carbon footprint, has been created by researchers from Kansas State University using some of the waste products of biofuel production. Concrete is a widely used material, and accounts for between 3-8% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The development of a concrete with a much lower carbon footprint would be significant. "The idea is to use bioethanol production by-products to produce a material to use in concrete as a partial replacement of cement," said Feraidon Ataie, doctoral student in civil engineering. "By using these materials we can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete materials." Concrete is a mixture of three main components: Portland cement, water, and aggregate. To cut back on the carbon footprint of concrete, the researchers have been looking for environmentally friendly materials to replace Portland cement. "It is predicted that bioethanol production will increase in the future because of sustainability," Ataie said. "As bioethanol production increases, the amount of the by-product produced also increases. This by-product can be used in concrete." Researchers have been looking at the byproducts that result from the production of cellulosic ethanol (biofuel made from inedible materials such as wood chips and grain husks). When the material is added to cement, it reacts chemically to make the concrete noticeably stronger. "The researchers tested the finished concrete material and found that replacing 20% of the cement with cellulosic material after burning increased the strength of the concrete by 32%." UPGRADING CRUDE OIL TO FLOW WITHOUT DILUENT MEG Energy Corp. [MEG-TSX], a Canadian thermal oil sands company, has announced plans to construct a pilot plant near Bruderheim, Alberta. The company plans to test a new technology that will convert diluted bitumen into heavy crude oil, allowing the partially upgraded heavy crude to flow in pipelines without the need for additional volumes of expensive diluent. MEG's HI-Q plant, in which the diluent as well as some asphaltenes and resins (otherwise referred to as "bottoms") are removed from the bitumen, is intended to be one of the first pre-commercial facilities for partial upgrading in the region. The estimated CDN 103.6 million project has won CDN $10 million in funding from Alberta's Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund because of the environmental benefits from a 44% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions as compared to the standard delayed coking upgrading process. Facility construction is expected to start this year, and the plant will begin producing 3,000-barrels-per-day by the end of 2014. n www.resourceworld.com 51

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